Via Popular Doctrine, we see some touching concern for Nova Scotia's poor from Daimnation's Jon N:
The Minimum Wage Review Committee Department of Environment and Labour released a report today that advises an increase in the minimum wage from $7.15 to $7.60. I urge the Minister to refrain from giving into the illusory benefits of the situation and decline.
Someone needs to do the math. The press release claims 26,700 who work minimum wage. Assuming fifty 40-hour work weeks per year, employers currently budget an aggregated $381,810,000 wage pot for the pay of these workers.
The big news flash is that raising the minimum wage does not proportionately jack up the budget for wages. An increase of 6% per hour does not mean employers will be forced to increase the wage pot 6% to $405 million. Take your pick: think like a hard-pressed small business owner or an evil corporate HR executive.
It's more likely that the wage pot will be more or less the same next year. So $382 million will be split among $7.60 earners, 40 hours, 50 weeks, leaving 25,100 minimum wage workers. Would the Minister dare ask 1,600 Nova Scotians to lose their jobs?...
It is the job of ministers to make the tough decisions that are required to protect minorities. The opposition will not fight for them. The media will not fight for them. Most voters will not fight for them. Will the minister fight for these already disadvantaged Nova Scotians?
In entirely unrelated news, we also have this entertaining tidbit:
Crime may not pay, but being an executive in Canada certainly appears to.
By the time the average Canadian pulls it together and drags their hungover body to work on January 2nd, the country's highest-paid CEOs will have already earned more for the year than their annual salary...
"When you say that the average CEO made $9 million in 2005 and the average Canadian made ($38,000), the comparison between those things is so far into the stratosphere that I think people have trouble just coming to terms with what the comparison means," said Hugh Mackenzie, an economist with the independent research institute that focuses on issues of social and economic justice.
Using "Jon"ian logic, one would therefore assume that if this overall Canadian executive compensation were to increase even further, some CEOs would be left out of the fixed compensation pot. Who -- I ask you, who -- is prepared to take a stand for the unfortunate chief executives who will be so cruelly left by the wayside by the next massive increase in corporate compensation?
Paging Jon N -- your country's CEOs need you.
4 comments:
I love Jon's condescending logic -- we don't want you poor people to get a raise, but really, we're doing it for your own good. Must be that "compassionate conservatism" we keep hearing so much about.
I admire the logic too - evidently this "wage pot" exists for the purpose of helping the poor. Certainly they don't get paid for providing an important and necessary service to their employers...
I urge the Minister to refrain from giving into the illusory benefits
ILLUSORY BENEFITS?????
Having an extra .50/hr is illusory only to someone who is making a lot more. Jon must have an expense account and not realize that the price of gas has gone up in the last year.
Also, when quoting that report, he 'forgot' to mention the item above his. It mentions that NS will require 50,000 more workers in the next few years because baby boomers are retiring and the new worker bees don't want to work for minimum wage. Jon Boy shouldn't take his little quotes out of context.
Most studies have shown that there are NO job losses associated with modest increases in the minimum wage.
Any job losses from marginal employers are often quickly remedied by increased activity in the consumer sector as people have more money to spend.
Post a Comment